Afro-German artist duo "Camukinyi" gets started

While Germany is overrun by white Rappers – one need only to think of Sido, Fler, Casper, Alligatoah or Cro – the number of Afro-German Rap-artists is limited, although there are a lot of talents out there, who deserve just the same amount of attention as their white colleagues. We want to present two of them: rapper, singer and songwriter Leila Akinyi and producer and rapper Camufingo.

Leila Akinyi was born in Mombasa in Kenya and lives in Cologne since she is six years old. Camufingo grew up in Potsdam and is now living in Luanda, Angola most of the time. For a joint musical project they now founded the artist duo Camukinyi and are going to publish their first EP “Morgenkämpfer” at Melting Pot Music in a couple of days.

The EP-title “Morgenkämpfer” is assembled by both of their names, because Akinyi means “Morgenkind” in Swahili and Camufingo is Umbundu and translates to “Einzelkämpfer”. The record consists out of five tracks and deals with a topic, that is central to Leila and Camufingo: How does it feel to be a Afro-German in Germany and how can one deal with an existence between Europe and Africa. In their songs, both artists get into a dialogue and spell out all problems, with which they are confronted every day: racism, prejudices, intolerance and the back and forth between the African and the German culture, which finally leads to the question of their own identity.

Since yesterday you can listen to the first single “S.I.S.S.” (Schwarz ist selbstbewusst sein, engl. Black is self confidence) on the internet. In this song, which brims over with energy and self-confidence, Camukinyi do away with all the prejudices and cliches, they have to face as dark-skinned Germans in their everyday life and make one thing clear: We don’t let people define us over our skin colour, we don’t have to justify for anything, we are who we are and we are confident and strong.

Those of you, who want to listen to the whole EP have to be patient until January 27th. Then the EP will be available for a free download and will also be available on all streaming-sites and in all download-stores. Furthermore you have the chance to celebrate the release of the EP together with Camukinyi in Cologne, where they will perform live on stage. All informations about the concert can be found in our eventcalendar!

Who we are

Our team is constantly working on promoting the cultural interaction between Africa and Germany. Za:media GmbH is responsible for the design and maintenance of this Portal and develops the content of the afrika!-project with a competent team of Webdesigners, editors and freelancers.